Wheat rallies on strong demand ahead of acreage report
By Reuters
By Renee Hickman
CHICAGO, June 27 (Reuters) – Chicago wheat futures surged on Thursday, with prices recovering from a string of retreats on bargain buying and strong export demand, analysts said.
Corn and soy fell on weaker demand and good crop prospects, and traders of all three commodities positioned themselves ahead of Friday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture acreage report.
The most-active wheat contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) rose 18-1/4 cents to $5.78-3/4 a bushel by 11:54 CDT (1654 GMT), and soybeans lost 1-1/2 cents to $11.05-1/2 a bushel. Corn fell 1-3/4 cents to $4.23-3/4 a bushel.
September wheat had been oversold, said Mark Soderberg, senior agricultural market analyst at ADM Investor Services, and rose as traders found bargains.
The crop also saw healthy export sales numbers on Thursday, indicating strong demand, as did purchases from top importers including Egypt and Algeria, he said.
The USDA reported net U.S. wheat export sales in the week ended June 20 totalling 667,200 metric tons for 2024/25, above trade estimates of 200,000 to 600,000 tons.
“The lower prices are doing what they need to, and that’s encouraging buying demand here for us,” Soderberg said.
In addition, Statistics Canada, the national statistics agency, estimated Canadian all-wheat plantings at 26.641 million acres, below the average trade expectation of 26.943 million. Canada is the world’s No. 4 wheat producer.
Traders were positioning ahead of the release of data by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The agency is scheduled to release its next quarterly stocks report for June, and its 2024 acreage report on Friday at 11:00 A.M. CDT (1600 GMT).
The market continues to weigh the impact of flooding and extreme heat in top corn and soybean growing areas of the central United States, but Soderberg said the weather remained “non-threatening”.
Crop prospects for corn in particular remain good, while demand continues to be low, he added. (Reporting by Renee Hickman; Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral and Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris; Editing by Alexander Smith)
This article has been republished from The Livemint.